Members of a church in Reading have made a parody of the John Lewis Christmas advert to try and get people thinking about God instead of gifts.

A team of film makers and amateur actors from Carey Baptist Church produced the parody, which aims to tell the story of Christmas in a modern setting and encourage people to connect with God.

The crew attempted to convey that God went to great lengths to reach the human race by sending commands, messages and then his son Jesus Christ more than 2,000 years ago.

The video took approximately 30 hours to make the crew claims it was done with "no budget".

Since the parody was posted on Youtube on Saturday December 5, it has proved to be popular, as more than 750 people have viewed it.

One of the producers Daniel Williams said: "We made this video to get people thinking about what Christmas is really about and not just the presents.

"People often wonder if God is out there, but the message of Christmas is that he took the initiative to come down to us by giving us his son Jesus.

"The John Lewis advert was calling out to us really. In the advert there is a big gap between the girl and the old man and they are trying to connect, and we wanted to make people think about the gap between God and humans.

"We were quite surprised and pleased by the positive reaction the video has got. Last year we did another John Lewis parody and that spread very quickly across Facebook and this one spread quickly too.

"But with this one people we don't know have seen it and been telling us that they enjoyed it, which is very encouraging. A couple of people said they actually cried watching it.

"This video was definitely more thought provoking than last year's.

He added: "We wanted to remind people that Christmas is not about buying a £150 coat from John Lewis, we were trying to encourage people to pause and think about what Christmas is really about."

The crew are encouraging people to rekindle their relationship with God or begin building one by attending Christmas services at the church in Carey Street, Reading.